


Treason Crackling In Your Blood

by tortoiseshells



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Gen, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Stark Family Fuckery, Vision Is Trying
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-10
Updated: 2018-09-10
Packaged: 2019-07-10 12:15:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15949151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tortoiseshells/pseuds/tortoiseshells
Summary: He probably should have thought of a good way to answer that. He could have thought of a better way to answer that at literally any point since seeing Wanda Maximoff in a goddamn shock collar and thinking to himself,wow, this is going to be a pain in my ass to explain to her Christmas-colored superpowered android amanuensis.Two awkward conversations between Tony and Vision, before and after Cap jailbreaks the Raft.





	Treason Crackling In Your Blood

**i.**

Tony Stark is in no mood to chat, so of course Vision finds him in that irritatingly almost Edwin Jarvis-like way that, to be honest, really grinds his gears. He shouldn’t be surprised. Vision’s been more of a moping magenta _something_ than ever since the airport fistfight and Tony doesn’t need to be a genius to know why (though it doesn’t hurt). What is it with Jarvises and almost-Jarvises and feisty Eastern European women? At least Anna Jarvis hadn’t ever tried to kill him. 

“Vision,” he says, coolly, tossing away his latest dead end.

“Mister Stark,” Vision starts. Tony watches him fidget. It’s uncanny how uncomfortable an indestructible robot – android – can look. “I assume you were able to meet with Captain Rogers’s comrades before.”

“Before Siberia? Yeah.”

“How are they?”

For a full half-second, Tony thinks about telling Vision he’s not fooling anyone. But that’s not totally fair. He does care about all their former teammates. In his weird, _Blade Runner_ , sideways way. 

“Fine. Clint’s still a smartass, Wilson’s still a bleeding heart. Apart from being the newest residents of an unrecorded government super-max pokey, y’know, they’re fine. Good as can be.”

“I see.”

“They still hate me,” he shrugs, “I’d say morale is high.”

“Did you speak with Wanda?”

“She still hates me, too,” Tony says, too quickly. There’s too much of J.A.R.V.I.S. left rattling around Vision’s circuits for Tony to get away with such weak bullshit. Hell. He probably should have thought of a good way to answer that. He could have thought of a better way to answer that at literally any point since seeing Wanda Maximoff in a goddamn shock collar and thinking to himself, _wow, this is going to be a pain in my ass to explain to her Christmas-colored superpowered android amanuensis_. 

“You didn’t speak with her.”

“No,” Tony answers, looking away, “I didn’t. Apparently she hasn’t been talking to anyone.”

“Not even Clint? Wilson?”

“Ross is keeping her separate from them.”

There’s an unpleasant twisting in his gut when he thinks about seeing her, vacant-eyed and trussed up. He’s not gotten to forgiving her for dropping half a garage on him, or for taking Cap’s side, but he hadn’t wanted _that_. He’s not a monster.

Vision’s not blinking, not like he does when he’s trying to look human. Tony’s pretty sure he’s not doing it to be intimidating. He can see the gears moving in Vision’s irises, and, from the way the android’s trying not to scowl, he’s definitely putting two and two together.

“Mister Stark, how exactly is Secretary Ross keeping Wanda imprisoned?”

Tony scrubs his hand through his hair, and laughs. He doesn’t mean to. Nothing about this is funny, excepting that he’s somehow fathered a god-tier android that’s making eyes at an angry telekinetic woman who’s tried to kill him in the past. But Vision’s still not blinking, and Tony can’t – doesn’t know what to say. So he laughs. “Why, you planning on breaking her out?”

“How is she being kept imprisoned?”

“You’re not going to like it.” 

“I suspect she likes it less.”

Tony drops into his chair, faster than he’d intended. Now he remembers that F.R.I.D.A.Y.’d been after him to either eat or sleep – and that was, what, this morning? Earlier? There’s crumbs on his pants, so maybe he listened. He can feel the exhaustion all the way to his bones, broken clavicle included. “Straightjacket. Shock collar. Drugs, too, I think. Not that Ross told me which no-doubt ethically and exhaustively tested cocktail he was using to make her look like an empty house. But, hey, at least they haven’t been beating her. Wilson can’t say the same.”

He glances up, not really sure what to expect. Anger? Sorrow? Indifference? She did put Vision through six floors and more than a few feet of topsoil. But it’s none of these, not exactly. Vision looks like he always does – somehow simultaneously neutral and vaguely perplexed – and, damn, he’s bad at acting, because the worry (and something worse, something that looks a lot like anger) is burning through like the sun through the LA smog.

“It’s all wrong,” Tony says, defeated. “I don’t know how to fix it. I don’t know if I can fix it.”

“There is an obvious solution.”

“Break ‘em out ourselves? Ross’d nail my ass to the wall. He’d get Rhodey. And you – look, Ross was going to vivisect Bruce Banner. A flesh and blood human who is theoretically protected by law from that kind of thing. Ross’ll scrap you just for the vibranium. No. If it was just me, or just you, fine, but it’s not. I can’t.”

To Vision’s credit, he doesn’t look at all worried by the prospect of getting turned into spare parts. “Captain Rogers does not face the same concerns. He is already a fugitive.”

“Cap can’t use a TI-83 without needing to read the manual three times. There’s no way he’d even be able to find the Raft.”

“We could contact him.”

“You think he’d listen? Did you miss the part where he and Barnes tried to kill me?”

“Captain Rogers cares deeply about his teammates.”

“Yeah,” Tony says venomously, “At least some of us.”

“Mr. Stark,” Vision says, quietly but forcefully, “You have said what Ross is doing is wrong.”

“Yeah.” Tony’s slipping away from this conversation. The only thing keeping Ross from being some _Mission Impossible_ super-villain is that, inexplicably, he’s the goddamn Secretary of State, and he has to devote at least some of his time to things other than opening new Gitmos and unethical human experimentation. But Ross hasn’t beat the shit out of him, and Ross didn’t murder his mom, so he’s cleared at least that low bar of human decency. Hell. He’s lived to see the day where he trusts Thunderbolt Ross more than Captain America. Howard’d have something to say about that, if Rogers’s war buddy hadn’t killed him.

Fuck. His mind’s going in circles like a damn centrifuge, but if anything useful’s been winnowed out, it’s beyond him. Ross is a bastard. Steve Rogers is a bastard. Barton and co. are caught between the two of them. Tony knows what he would have done a month ago. Hell, a week ago. But now it’s the world turned upside down, or whatever the line is from that musical the interns have been blasting non-stop. Now he’s got no tears to shed for a bunch of adults who made bad choices and ended up in trouble.

“Show me,” Vision is saying, and Tony vaguely feels as though Vision’s repeating himself.

“What?”

“I presume you recorded your visit. I want to see it.”

Tony deflects. “You won’t like it.”

“I am sure I will not. But I must insist.”

“Why?”

The question seems to startle the android. Was he not expecting it? Or is the answer too obvious for even Vision to say out loud? Tony watches the android closely, the gears and cogs in his irises, the way he holds his head at an angle as he considers some new perspective. Learning to be human in the middle of a super-powered family feud couldn’t be easy on the guy.

“I-I-“ he stutters, honestly stutters, shaking his head and looking down at himself as though personally betrayed by the vibranium, “I want to know they’re well. That they’re alive.”

Tony waves his good hand. He’s pretty sure he knows where this is going, but he doesn’t have the time for it. He’s not sticking his neck out an inch for Barton, Wilson, and Wanda. If Vision wants to waste his time with this, fine. “Ask F.R.I.D.A.Y. about it. Not here. I’ve got a deadline for something.”

“Thank you, Mr. Stark,” Vision replies. And he’s gone.

 

**ii.**

Tony finds Vision, this time.

He’s sitting in his room, looking at the painting. It’s a Van Gogh? Tony never looked at the receipts from this place. He’s never given it much thought either, because he’s not an interior designer and, outside of the obvious, bedroom décor’s never really been an interest of his.

“I’m going to Washington. Well, Rhodey and I are going to Washington,” he announces.

Vision doesn’t stand up, doesn’t even look over his shoulder. “I wish you a safe journey. When will you return to the compound?”

“Can’t say right now. Got a hell of a fire to put out down there.” He wishes Vision would turn around. It’d make it a lot easier to see just how guilty his robot son is of committing or aiding in the commission of a baker’s dozen felonies. _Vision really picked a great time to start demonstrating the Stark family indifference to the law_ , Tony thinks to himself for the third time that day.

“Will you require my assistance?” Vision asks, blandly.

“You know, you really ought to ask what someone needs help with before offering,” Tony replies, equally casually, leaning on the doorway like this is just a courtesy. “I just got a call from Ross. There’s been a jailbreak. At the Raft. Floating ocean supermax, last known address of Sam Wilson, Clint Barton, Scott Lang, and Wanda Maximoff. We’ve talked about it once or twice.”

Vision nods, slowly. Apparently he’s not even trying to look surprised.

“It was Cap,” he continues, strolling across the room towards Vision, shoving his hands in his pockets for lack of things to fidget or gesture with, “Ross was a little shocked, because everyone and their grandmothers know that Rogers doesn’t do tech, and yet he found an unfindable submerged prison, and busted out four ‘dangerous criminals’ with that day’s security codes.”

He comes a halt in front of the android, who’s still looking absently at the painting. Maybe it’s not a Van Gogh. Pepper could tell him, if she was talking to him. “Ross was particular about Wanda. Apparently there was a fairly complicated – complicated for Ross and his monkeys, not for me – set of codes and protocols to get that shock collar off and get her out of that little oubliette. Pretty classified stuff. Probably out of Cap’s league. But she’s definitely gone. ”

“Are they safe?” Vision asks.

“They’ve disappeared,” Tony shrugs, “Could mean anything. But I’d guess so.”

It’s a little weird – okay, it’s very weird – to see Vision smile, even a small thing that looks to Tony like an uncanny mix of relief and guilt. He folds his hands up in his lap, nods again, and meets Tony’s look. “I am glad to hear it, Mister Stark.”

“Anything else you had to say on the matter?”

“No.”

“No suspicions or surprise admissions I can pass on to the DC brass?”

“I’m sure Agent Romanov has managed to find Captain Rogers since leaving the compound. She possesses much of the skill necessary for such a break-in, I believe.”

Tony sighs, deeply, from beyond the bottom of his diaphragm (thanks, yoga), and, for the second time in two weeks, finds himself scrubbing his good hand across his face while Vision refuses to blink. Thinks about telling Vision he sounds more stick-up-the-ass British than usual when he’s lying, which he absolutely is, right now, to Tony’s face. Decides against it, because it’s one of the few advantages he has on him. Tony sighs, again.

“I get the feeling you’re not upset about this, Vision.”

“No,” the android replies, deliberate and careful, “But please do not misunderstand me. I still believe that the Accords were not wholly misguided. But, amongst other things, Secretary Ross cannot be trusted with the power the law grants him. He cannot be relied upon to deal fairly with our former colleagues.”

“Is that a confession?”

“Not at all, Mister Stark.”

“Right,” Tony says, even more frustrated than he was at the start of this weird little chat, “Good talk. I’m going to Washington to deal with this mess.”

He notices a pale glint in Vision’s hands as he leaves the room. Tarnished silver. It’s a ring, he realizes when he plays back the security footage of that conversation on the plane. F.R.I.D.A.Y. has no trouble identifying whose.

**Author's Note:**

> new fandom, who's this?
> 
> Title from Robert Lowell's _Mr. Edwards and the Spider_.


End file.
